The Ocean of Night
by Putaro
Summary: Part 2 of Five Year Mission: After a sneak attack on Earth, Enterprise leaves for deep space, searching for answers. This is a general ensemble piece with an emphasis on Trip and T'Pol. Expect science fiction, mystery, adventure and explosions!
1. Fallout

**_Welcome to The Ocean of Night, part 2 of Five Year Mission. Thanks to all of you returning readers for your support. If you haven't read it already, you will probably want to read Setting the Course, part 1 of Five Year Mission. Setting the Course deals with Enterprise getting ready for the five year mission, TnT romance and Romulan machinations. Part 2 is going to be faster paced and more of a science fiction and adventure story. We'll _****_explore new territory_** and meet some new and some perhaps familiar alien races. I'm looking forward to the TREC!  


**_Sorry for the delay in getting this first chapter out. It was a little tricky. Thanks as always to Alelou for her advice and support!_  
**

**Chapter 1 – ****Fallout**

_Captain's Log, August 18, 2156 – Earth has been attacked with nuclear weapons by an unidentified enemy. Who attacked us and why is unknown. _Enterprise_ is proceeding to the source of the control signals for the attacking drones. Perhaps we will find the answers we seek there._

August 18, 2156 2300 (Pacific Time) – _Enterprise_ Ready Room, Outer Sol System

Jonathan Archer was alone in the Ready Room. The adrenaline of the battle had worn off and he was limp. What the hell had just happened? The drones had appeared from nowhere and they'd failed to stop them. At least two nuclear weapons had been detonated – how many more had gotten through?

This wasn't the time for brooding, though. He had to get ready for the next challenge. There was still twenty minutes or so before they reached the source of the control signals and what they would find there was anyone's guess. It was unlikely the control ship had remained, but not impossible.

The comm panel chimed and Hoshi's voice came out of the intercom. "Captain? I have Starfleet Command for you."

August 18, 2156 2300 (Pacific Time) – Warbird _Alidar_, Interstellar space (near Sol)

The first battle of the as yet unnamed war was over. Subcommander Merik finished reading the last of the after-action reports with a sense of satisfaction. They had trained for over a year for this mission and he was proud of the results. Ten enemy ships destroyed, an orbital shipbuilding facility and eleven of the surface targets had been annihilated. He copied and pasted the unfamiliar target names from the mission instructions: Beijing, Tokyo, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Sao Paulo, New York, London, Moscow, Mumbai, Delhi, Jakarta. Twelve of the twenty-four nuclear-armed drones had been destroyed before they were able to reach their targets.

Some of the gun camera video was a little odd in retrospect; apparently many of the targets were desolate areas. However, the squadron had delivered the payloads to the designated areas and he had double-checked the map co-ordinates. Perhaps the Humans hid command bunkers in those spots.

He finished the report and sent it off as a microburst subspace message. _Alidar_ continued on its leisurely way, still masquerading as a lumbering Tellarite freighter. Merik looked forward to their homecoming in four months; he was sure that commendations and a promotion awaited him.

August 18, 2156 0935 – The Forge, Vulcan (40 Eridani III)

The Romulan safe house was buried deep in the bedrock and heavily shielded from the geomagnetic instabilities of the Forge. Subcommander Lovok and Sublieutenant Suran had been locked in the suite of five small rooms for over a local year now with only occasional short trips to the surface to break the monotony. During the V'Las administration an optical fiber had been surreptitiously run out from Shi'Kahr and buried under the sand and rock. This was their only link to the rest of Vulcan. Several other Romulans had been infiltrated since the death of T'Jan but they were not in contact with them.

Suran rolled out of bed and rummaged through the pile of clothing on the floor for a semi-clean tunic and pants. Donning these he headed to the dining area for a cup of _seklal_. Lovok was seated at the small table, wearing a robe and drinking his own morning beverage. "About time you got up_,"_ he growled at Suran. "Go check the news feeds._"_

Scratching, Suran went into the workroom and seated himself at the view screen. Their work had been uneventful for months. He brought up the usual search terms. Today, however, the results were much more than expected.

"Subcommander! There's been some kind of attack on Earth. It's one of the critical search terms!_"_

That brought Lovok to life and he came in and seated himself at the other view screen.

A few minutes perusal of the large volume of data and they came to the conclusion that there was little actual information so far, though the Vulcans had generated vast amounts of analysis and commentary. They sifted out the facts and composed a short message to send by microburst transmission.

August 18, 2156 1700 20th Floor, Hall of State, Ra'tleihfi, Romulus

The Earth desk had expanded considerably from when it had been formed. Centurion Shival had his own office, with a window even, and a staff of ten worked outside in a common room. He was sipping from a mug of _seklal_ and enjoying the view of Ra'tleihfi when Sublieutenant Neral bustled in through the door, waving a PADD. "Sir, sir, we have the reports on the Earth attack!"

Shival sat up straight. "Excellent! Let me see." He scanned through the terse report from Vulcan. "Why do most of the city names have 'old' in front of them?" he asked, putting the PADD down on his desk.

"I really don't know." Neral peered at the PADD, trying to read upside down. "Perhaps it's a Human custom to add that after something is destroyed?" he said brightly.

"Well, it will just cause confusion. Remove those, neaten it up, and get it upstairs right away!"

August 18, 2156 1740 93rd Floor, Hall of State, Ra'tleihfi, Romulus

Proconsul Tamman entered the Praetor's office with a spring in his step. The Praetor was standing at his large table as usual. The door slid shut with a muffled thud.

Tamman smiled. "We have the results of the attack and they look very good!"

The Praetor lifted an eyebrow. "Remind me again, which attack?"

"The one on Earth. It was scheduled for today, remember?"

"Oh, yes, I'd completely forgotten." He gestured at the PADDs spread over his table. "All of this Klingon nonsense, you know."

"Well, it looks like a success. We destroyed eleven of their cities, ten of their ships, wiped out their orbital shipyards and the casualties were over thirty million. I think it will be some time before they attend any more conferences or smooth over any difficulties between the Vulcans and everyone else."

"Those were the Galae s'Shiar results, I assume. They sound very rosy."

"We have confirmation from the Vulcan media as well. They are preliminary reports, of course, but it all fits together."

The Praetor put his hands on the table and leaned over it for a moment, then looked up at Tamman. "Quite a thing, isn't it, sentencing thirty million beings to their deaths?"

Tamman shrugged. "They stood in our way."

The Praetor straightened up. "Quite true, quite true. Well, that's why I'm Praetor – someone must make such decisions." He wiped his hands together. "Now, how shall we proceed with the rest of the _Daenn_?"

The two brought up charts on the large view screens and bent to their plotting.

August 18, 2156 2305 (Pacific Time) – _Enterprise_ Situation Room, Outer Sol System

The senior staff stood around the chart table in uncustomary silence. T'Pol could see that Hoshi's eyes were red from her silent weeping at her station. Phlox was clearly disturbed; T'Pol knew he regarded Earth with great fondness. She could feel Trip's anguish through the bond, although he was trying hard to keep his emotions under control. Captain Archer had withdrawn into that hard shell he had built around himself during their time in the Expanse. Lieutenant Commander Reed was expressionless while Lieutenant Mayweather looked stunned.

Archer had invited the diplomatic staff and the MACO commander, Lieutenant Valois, to join them as well. Ms. Patel stared at the table surface and she shook her head faintly every few seconds. Mr. Wong and the lieutenant both had their lips set in thin lines.

Archer began. "I just received an update from Starfleet Command. There's good news and bad news. The good news is that, for some reason, most of the targets were memorial sites: Old Beijing, Old Tokyo, Old Los Angeles, Old Moscow and several others. San Francisco was targeted but the defenses took out the drone before it could detonate. The same happened at Shanghai, Sydney, Osaka, Paris, almost all of the inhabited targets." He paused and clutched the edges of the chart table. "The bad news is, one got through to Mexico City. The early estimates are the entire city and its suburbs were wiped out, over thirty million dead."

Everyone was silent for a moment. "Jesus, that's worse than the Xindi attack," Trip said. "Bastards," bit out Wong.

Archer raised his hand and they quieted. "We need to focus on the task at hand. We'll be where the control signals were coming from in fifteen minutes. Hoshi, have there been any more signals?"

Hoshi was looking at the floor but her voice was clear. "No, nothing that matches the signature."

"T'Pol, anything on long range sensors?"

"No, there are no subspace emissions that we can detect."

Archer nodded. "They probably ran as soon as the attack was finished. With any luck, though, we'll be able to pick up their warp trail." He looked around at the crew with his mouth set in a hard line. "And when we catch up with them, our orders are to capture them if at all possible. We want to know who to bring the fight to."

August 18, 2156 2324 (Pacific Time) – _Enterprise_ Bridge, Outer Sol System

_Enterprise_ dropped out of warp, shields up and weapons ready. "Any sign of a warp trail?" queried Archer, his attention focused on his own tactical display, as though scrutinizing it more closely would show something.

"No, Captain," replied T'Pol, hunched over her viewer. She worked the controls next to it. "However, there _is_ a radiation signature that is consistent with a small vessel, perhaps a relay, exploding."

"Damn," gritted out Archer. "Is there any debris? Maybe we can figure out who built it."

"No, the destruction was complete." T'Pol turned from the viewer to face him. "There is no information for us here."

August 19, 2156 0035 (Pacific Time) – T'Pol's cabin, _Enterprise_, Outer Sol System

Trip slipped through T'Pol's door quickly. "Thank you for coming," she said, and let herself be enveloped in his arms as he kissed her. "Anytime darlin'," he said. "It's been quite a day. I could use some neuropressure myself."

They sat down on the floor and she removed the red pajama top. Trip seated himself behind her and began touching the pressure points on her back. "You're awfully tense," he said. "Do you want to talk about it?"

She closed her eyes. "Ensign Gutierrez is from Mexico City. It was my duty to inform him."

August 20, 2156 1400 (Pacific Time) – Coalition Council Chambers, San Francisco, Earth

"And so I ask the other Coalition members to assist us in discovering the perpetrators of this unprovoked attack and in delivering our retaliation to them." Minister Samuels sat down in the chair at Earth's position at the table, Earth's ambassador to the Council sitting behind him.

Ambassador Shras, of Andoria, rose. "Andoria will support Earth," he said simply, then sat back down.

Gral, the Tellarite Ambassador, rose, and faced Samuels. "Not so fast. I've been studying your history, Earthling. Will you go on a hunt for 'weapons of mass destruction' now?" he said, scornfully. "Who will be the target of your retaliation?" He waved around the room. "Any of our worlds could have produced these drones. Will you wish to search us all for evidence of this attack?"

Samuels rose again. "We are not accusing anyone in this room of the attack. We will have justice, though," he declared, slamming his hand on the table. "Thirty million of our people have been killed." He looked around the room. "Is this what we should expect from joining the galactic community? Is this what our message of peace is bringing us?" He appeared to be close to tears.

Soval rose from his seat. "Vulcan grieves with you, Minister. Now, as ever, Vulcan, too, wishes to deliver a message of peace. We will support you in your search, but we urge a peaceful resolution when the perpetrators are identified."

Shras jumped to his feet, antennae twitching. "Peaceful resolution? After a nuclear attack on civilians? There's only one answer to butchers like that!"

The meeting dissolved into chaos.

August 23, 2156 1400 (Pacific Time) _Enterprise_, Outer Sol System

Hoshi stepped into T'Pol's office. She was still wearing the dress uniform she and the rest of the crew had donned for the memorial service earlier.

"Commander, I have the latest reports from Earth. Everyone's immediate family is accounted for now."

"That is agreeable to hear," T'Pol said as she accepted the PADD. "What is the status of your family, Hoshi?"

"I finally spoke with them and they're fine, thank you. They were in Osaka when the attacks happened. They made it home last night."

T'Pol thought back to the tranquil garden of the Sato home and in her mind saw the trees and grasses turning brown. "And radiation from the attack?" she asked.

"The reports are it's mostly blowing out to sea in Japan."

"That's fortunate."

Hoshi left and T'Pol studied the PADD. Many areas were being evacuated as radioactive fallout from the blasts spread. She saw that New San Diego was one of the affected areas and made a note to speak with Ensign Spector.

August 25, 2156 0900 (Central European Time) Prime Minister's Office, Brussels, Earth

"Yao Lin, thank you for accepting the position," Samuels said as the new Defense Minister entered his office.

"I am honored. I thought, however, that DeForrest was doing an excellent job."

"I thought so too. There was a demand for heads, though, and he wound up being the sacrifice."

"I see. And what are your instructions for me?"

"We need to be seen to be doing something about this. Roast Starfleet over the coals to tighten up the defenses. Find out who the hell did this and deliver vengeance to them."

"I was informed that investigations are already in progress, but there is very little hard evidence. It may take months to develop anything. Will there be another demand for heads?"

"There may be." Samuels rubbed his hand over his mouth. "_Enterprise_ was scheduled to leave for an exploration mission. Send them on their way and we can say they're searching for the attackers. Who knows, maybe Archer will turn up with the goods again. At least we can say we're doing something that people will understand."

August 25, 2156 1335 (Pacific Time) _Enterprise_ Ready Room, Outer Sol System

Archer turned away from the view screen with a sigh. Ten minutes of arguing with Gardner had been fruitless. Gardner had looked exhausted, with dark bags under his eyes. He had not even defended the decision to Archer; he had simply and tiredly re-iterated it again and again and said it couldn't be changed. Archer hit the comm and summoned the First Officer and Chief Engineer then slumped back in his seat.

Trip and T'Pol came in together and stood in front of Archer's desk. He turned his chair to them. "Well, we have our mission," he said, shaking his head.

"That's good, isn't it?" said Trip. "We've been going in circles for almost a week now. I don't know how those boys on the perimeter patrols keep from going nuts."

"Our mission," he said, making air quotes with his fingers, "is to proceed on TREC as planned. If we come across any information on the attackers we're to pursue it, but otherwise we're to stick to the original mission plan." He waited for their reaction.

Trip blurted, "Are they completely crazy back there on Earth?"

T'Pol raised an eyebrow. "It makes as much sense as any other course of action at this time. Starfleet needs to be seen as acting, but we have no information. One direction is just as likely as any other to yield results and our mission _is_ to the least explored regions."

Archer sighed. "Maybe you're right. Tell Travis to set a course. Dismissed." He turned his chair to look out the window, ignoring them as they exited. A minute later, the stars in the window turned to streaks as _Enterprise_ spread her wings and left Earth behind at warp speed.


	2. J'Accuse!

_Sorry for the long delay, it's been a busy time. Next few chapters should come along fairly quickly. Thanks as always to Alelou for advice and support!_

Chapter 2 – J'Accuse!

_Captain's Log, October 11__th__, 2156. We are now five light years beyond the limits of Coalition space and we have turned to begin the first two hundred and fifty light year leg of our TREC mission. There are still no answers about who launched the attack on Earth._

October 11, 2156 1915 (Pacific Time) – _Enterprise_ Captain's Mess, deep space

Archer was pushing the vegetables around on his plate. Little of his meal had actually been consumed, T'Pol observed. "Captain, you need to eat," she said.

Archer sighed and poked a green bean with his fork. "You're right, of course." He put the fork down and pushed back from the table. "I just feel so damned useless." He stood up and paced. "Earth has been attacked, we need to find out who did it, and we're off on this exploration mission." He slammed his hand into the bulkhead and stared out the window.

Trip came over to Archer and put his hand on his shoulder. "Now Cap'n, we've been over this. We are looking and we're just as likely to find something here as we are anyplace else."

"Do you really believe that, Trip?"

Trip looked helplessly at T'Pol, but she had nothing to offer him. Trip sighed. "I have to, Jon. It's the only thing keeping me sane."

October 12, 2156 2345 (Greenwich Mean Time) – Starfleet Cambridge Weapons Laboratory, Earth

The large hangar was strewn with the gathered wreckage of the drones. The drones that had delivered the nuclear weapons, of course, had been completely vaporized in the attack, but several others had been destroyed in flight and their pieces scattered. Technicians had been working around the clock since the attack, searching for any evidence that would identify the creators. Search crews continued to comb nearby space and scour the Earth and every few days another fragment would appear.

Commander Harcourt ran a hand through his thinning hair and took another sip of coffee. His desk in the corner was strewn with PADDs containing reports, all negative. They had found no identifying marks anywhere in the wreckage though there were spots on many pieces where it was obvious that markings had been removed. None of the materials could be traced to any known world. Early on, they had considered the Romulans, but the only connection they could find so far was that the attackers and the Romulans had used drone ships. However, the energy signatures were completely different and the recorded control signals from the drones were quite different from those that _Enterprise_ had recorded in their encounter with the Romulan drone. He had spent some time talking with Commander Tucker and Lt. Commander Reed, and their recollections of the architecture of the drone ship did not match that of the attack drones. They hadn't ruled the Romulans out yet, but they needed to have an airtight case to launch a retaliatory strike.

A female technician came running up to his desk, carrying a spherical component. "Commander! I think there's some kind of writing on this!"

October 13, 2156 2130 (Pacific Time) – Starfleet Headquarters, Sausalito, Earth

Gardner paced in his office, waiting for the follow-up call from the Cambridge lab. Finally the view screen chimed and he immediately rushed to answer it. As he had hoped, it was Commander Harcourt.

"We've identified the writing, sir," Harcourt said. "It's from a race the Vulcans discovered some time ago. They're called the 'Edosians'."

October 13, 2156 2230 (Pacific Time) – _Enterprise_ Command Center, deep space

Archer looked around at the assembled staff and took a deep breath. "Starfleet Command believes they have some information about the race that built the drones. There was a fragment of writing they found on a component and they were able to match that writing to this race."

He tapped at a control and a picture appeared on the main screen of a three legged, three armed alien – though, interestingly, the alien appeared to only have two eyes set conventionally in a somewhat humanoid face. It was an outdoor picture, apparently taken without the subject's knowledge. "This is from the Vulcan survey of 2086 when they visited the system. At that time, the Edosians were at an Early Atomic Age of development, similar to where Earth was in the nineteen fifties, but with some very advanced bioengineering. Since they were a pre-warp culture, the survey team decided not to make a first-contact. That is the last contact any Coalition member is known to have had with them."

"Until they showed up and nuked our planet," growled Malcolm.

Veena Patel, the Foreign Ministry representative, raised her hand in a stop gesture. "Hold on. I've received a copy of the report as well. At this point all we know is that a component of the drone has writing that appears to be Edosian on it. Let's not jump to conclusions."

Archer gritted his teeth. "Veena's right. _Enterprise_ is the closest Coalition ship to Edos. Our orders are to investigate and find out if the Edosians were involved and what level of involvement they had. A retaliation fleet is being assembled and will be on their way within a couple of weeks. They're limited to about Warp 3 by the supply vessels, so we're going to be on our own for the next six months. Our investigation will determine the fleet's actions when they arrive."

"Oh, so no pressure then," said Trip.

Archer gave a tight smile. "No, no pressure at all. Travis, plot a course for the outer fringes of the Edosian system. Hoshi, Trip, T'Pol, I want you to work together to gather as much signals intelligence as we can and hopefully get more of a handle on their language. We're going to remain stealthy for as long as possible. There's no point in alerting the Edosians."

October 17, 2156 1445 (Lailong time) – Institute for Natural Science, Mekong, Edos

The room was cluttered with workbenches and equipment racks. The walls, floor and ceiling were light beige and close inspection would have shown them to be textured, in an organic way. The sole occupant of the room, Apprentice Philosopher Batou, was standing in front of a workstation, legs locked in a stable tripod, reading a technical journal.

On the other side of the room, a tangle of equipment was arrayed around a device about a half a meter in all dimensions. The device's design was subtly alien, not sharing a common design ethos with the equipment attached to it. Wires and optical fibers were plugged into it.

Activity began to register on several of the monitors attached to it, then a threshold was passed and an alert popped up on Batou's screen. He spun, pivoting on his rear leg, and quickly crossed the room. He examined one of the monitors, thought for a second, then rapped out a quick pattern of knocks on the wall, stuck his rear hand out, and returned his attention to the monitor. A "tap tap" sounded from inside the wall and then a tendril descended from the ceiling, grabbed a hand tool from a rack on the other side of the room and conveyed it to his outstretched hand. He made a couple of adjustments to the core device, double-checked the readings on the monitors, and then, satisfied that the readings were accurate, retrieved a communicator from a pocket of his garment and made a connection.

"It's me, Batou. Sir, we're getting reading from the underspace detector that are consistent with a starship approaching."

October 19, 2156 2300 (Pacific Time) - _Enterprise_ Exercise Room, Edos Oort Cloud

Malcolm ran on the treadmill, pushing, pushing. When he was exhausted he could sleep, not seeing the mushroom clouds, not feeling again the frustration of being unable to target the drones. He grabbed the towel off the treadmill bar and wiped the sweat off his forehead.

The door to the gym slid open and diplomat Tom Lee came in, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt. He got on the other treadmill, nodded at Malcolm and began to run as well.

Panting, Malcolm dialed the treadmill to a walking pace to cool down. He took a look over at Lee, who was jogging steadily. It was the first time he had seen the diplomat wearing anything beside a suit. His round, almost pudgy face belied his slim and muscular body. A long scar ran down his left arm, emerging from under the T-shirt sleeve and ending halfway down his forearm. It looked like something left by a blade.

"Didn't think you diplomatic types got into knife fights."

Lee looked over at him, and then looked down at his arm without breaking stride. "Oh, you'd be surprised how much damage an ambassador can cause with a poorly worded letter." He gave a wry smile.

October 20, 2156 1500 (Pacific Time) – _Enterprise_ Command Center, Edos Oort Cloud

_Enterprise_ lurked on the outskirts of the Edosian solar system, listening silently. Archer walked down the hall receiving crisp salutes from many of the personnel. The military side of Starfleet was in ascendancy on board _Enterprise_. He wished the universe would let them be the scientists and explorers he'd thought they were originally. When Archer entered the command center he was a little surprised to find Doctor Phlox present in addition to T'Pol, Trip, Malcolm, Hoshi and Veena.

"All right, Lieutenant, what's the latest?" Archer asked Hoshi.

"The universal translator is up to speed and we're getting good translation for the four major languages in use. We've decoded their broadcast audio and video formats and are recording and analyzing their signals. The diplomatic team has a database to work with."

"Good. Veena, how's the political analysis coming?"

Patel brought a map of Edos up on the wall. Like Earth, it had vast expanses of ocean. There were four continents on the map and a scattering of islands with ice caps at the poles. Edos was also a smaller and less dense planet, with a surface gravity about half that of Earth's.

"There are three major political alignments. The People's Democratic Republic of Lailong, the Weechee Hegemony and the Empire of Arlex. They're locked in a three-way version of Earth's Cold War. There's a lot of propaganda being generated by all of them so we're trying to parse through it all." She tapped a key and the smallest continent displayed the legend _People's Democratic Republic of Lailong_. "The Lailong Republic is the smallest of the three. They appear to actually be a democratic republic." She tapped another key and two of the continents were labeled _Weechee Hegemony_. "The Weechee Hegemony is a military dictatorship. It's the most powerful of the three. They recently conquered the continent of Balas, which was previously the Balas Confederation." She labeled the final and largest continent. "The Empire of Arlex is an absolute monarchy with a hereditary emperor."

Trip took over. "Technology-wise, they're at about where we were in the early 22nd century. They have a good impulse drive and nuclear fusion. And they have some other technology that was out of our expertise, so we called in Phlox."

Archer looked expectantly at the doctor. Phlox asked, "Would you bring up clip one, please? This is from a video drama." A view of a residential looking street, of average size, lined with trees appeared. Quite normal looking until a vehicle, if you could call something with legs a vehicle, scuttled into view. It had legs, but it was also fitted with a transparent bubble canopy, and the body's shiny finish looked as if it had been painted.

"What the hell is that?" asked Archer.

"We believe that it is an artificial life form, a bioengineered vehicle if you will. Freeze the video please." With the image frozen, Phlox walked over and tapped at the image. "If you look closely at the houses, you'll see that they appear to be organic as well. The Edosians appear to like lawns and this," he tapped on a squat, three legged animal with claws like scissors, "appears to be their version of an automatic lawnmower."

"That's some pretty impressive genetic engineering," Archer said.

"Yes, it is. It's quite in advance of anything Earth or even Denobula has attempted. Ensign Spector and I both learned quite a bit from watching some of their children's shows."

"Those drones weren't biological, though. Are any of the Edosian nations capable of producing them?" Archer asked.

Malcolm stepped forward. "Based on what we've seen of their technology, it's our belief," he nodded at Trip and T'Pol, "that none of them possess subspace radio technology, but the propulsion, warheads and fuselages could have been produced by any of them."

Archer frowned. "Those drones had shields as well. As we know, that's a particularly tricky piece of engineering. Earth still hasn't mastered that."

T'Pol nodded. "That is true," she said, taking the controls. "However, we have detected the following installations," and three dots appeared as she pressed a control, "that appear to be shielded. Two of them are in the Weechee Hegemony and one is in the Empire of Arlex."

"So they're the prime suspects."

"Yes," said T'Pol. "I would not rule out the Lailongese, though. We need more data."

October 20, 2156 2300 (Pacific Time), T'Pol's cabin, _Enterprise, _Edos Oort Cloud

Trip glanced up and down the hall before pushing the doorbell. T'Pol opened the door immediately and he slipped in, scooped her into his arms and kissed her deeply. "I've been wanting to do that all day long," he told her. She responded by kissing him again.

Trip backed away slightly but continued to hold her. "T'Pol, I'm worried about this mission. I know the Captain wants you to go, but you're the science officer and this is more like covert operations. This is Malcolm's bag, not yours."

T'Pol pressed her forehead against Trip's chest. "Trip, I am not old for a Vulcan, but I have had enough time to do many things. Covert operations was one of them."

"Seriously?" She could feel Trip's shock through the bond. "And the Captain knew, but not me?"

"It is not something you talk about. The Captain had a need to know and my relationship with you was not as close at the time. And since we have been closer, it was never relevant. Please do not be upset."

He held her tightly. "All right. But you be careful, you hear? I want you back in one piece."

"Yes." She leaned in as he held her tightly.

October 22, 2156 1445 (Lailong time) – Ministry of Science, Mekong, Edos

"Senior Philosopher Trin, it's good to see you," said the Minister of Science. He waved Trin and Batou to a position around his conference table. "What's all this about alien spacecraft, then? The Ministry of War hasn't reported any contacts."

"I'll let my apprentice, Batou, explain it," said Trin.

"Yes sir," said Batou. "You see, it's the underspace detector that we salvaged from the wrecked alien shuttle last year. We're pretty sure that it is detecting a ship using their FTL drive."

"I see. Can you determine its position?"

Batou lowered his head. "No, unfortunately not. The software that operates the device was erased by the crash. We've been developing our own control software but it hasn't gotten past simple detection. I'm sure, though, that the detection does work."

"I'll pass the information along to the Ministry of War. If we can find a way to stop this flow of alien technology to Edos perhaps we can avoid destruction."

October 23rd, 2156 1323 (Pacific Time) – _Enterprise_ IPS shuttlepod, Edos system

The new Indigenous Population Survey shuttlepod was designed to allow a research team to monitor a pre-warp culture for several weeks without being detected. Matte black and radar absorbing, it also had amenities the old shuttlepods did not, like bunks, a toilet, small galley and even a shower. Malcolm fidgeted with the mapping console while Travis relaxed in the pilot's seat, probably because he had nothing to do but monitor the autopilot. T'Pol appeared to be reading; snores from the bunk area indicated that the MACOs were using the time wisely as well. Malcolm, T'Pol and Corporal Romero were the insertion team and three more MACOs were along as a reserve. For once, the captain had heeded his security recommendations in full.

"This is nice, but I kind of miss the old Suliban cell ship," Travis said.

"That thing? It was so cramped and we never did get the smell out of it," replied Malcolm.

An audible sniff from T'Pol punctuated his statement.

"That's true," Travis said, "but at least it had warp drive. We're going to be all day getting there." _Enterprise_ had warped in from the outer Oort cloud, to a position equivalent to the orbit of Neptune in Earth's system. The shuttlepod had been speeding along at fifteen percent of light speed for the last six hours, but it would still be another twenty-two hours before they reached Edos.

As if on cue, Corporal Albert "Al" Romero swung himself out of his bunk and headed forward. "Are we there yet?" he asked, for the fifth time so far this mission.

Short and stocky, Romero was a good MACO except for his incorrigible and often inappropriate sense of humor. He was also the best covert operative they had, after himself, of course. Or, perhaps, T'Pol. Somewhere in her mysterious and substantial past she must have been trained for covert work. The Captain had insisted she be included over Malcolm's initial objections and her background had shone through in the brief time they had spent planning and training for the mission. Even after five years spent together she was still full of surprises.

Romero was lucky that he reported to Valois, a North American. If he'd drawn a Brit or a German as his commanding officer he'd be singing a different tune quickly. Well, there was no need for Malcolm to put up with his nonsense!

"No, and we shan't be stopping for ice cream, either. That's enough of your cheek, Romero," Malcolm snapped.

"Yessir, sorry sir," Romero said, crisply but somehow insincerely. "I overheard you talking about the shuttlepod. All of us MACOs are enjoying it as well."

"Don't get too comfortable. This isn't a camping trip. The Edosians may be somewhat primitive but that doesn't mean they're not dangerous. A bullet will kill you just as dead as a phase pistol."

"Yessir!"

After a moment of silence, Malcolm observed, "At least we'll be riding down like gentlemen, not doing a covert insertion in an aeroshell."

Romero grunted in response. T'Pol put in, "I find this method much more agreeable as well."

"What are you all talking about?" asked Travis.

Malcolm replied, "If you're doing a covert insertion on a hostile planet, one way to go in is in a stealthy re-entry aeroshell. No engines, just some cold gas thrusters and you use aerobraking to lose your orbital speed. Ablative foam under your back and if you're lucky you just look like a meteor. If you're unlucky you ARE a meteor. Don't worry, we don't have any of _those_ aboard _Enterprise_. This trip was _supposed_ to be an exploration mission."

The remainder of the voyage passed uneventfully. They ate, took turns at the pilot station, slept in shifts and finally inserted themselves into a polar orbit around Edos. Orbiting pole to pole, the planet spun under their flight path, and they would eventually cross over every part. This was the first close look they'd gotten at the planet and they unlimbered the high-resolution cameras to generate maps.

Finally, after a day in orbit, the maps were finished and they identified a suitable base camp. Once it was night in that area, Travis took them out of orbit and slowly, quietly, the shuttlepod lowered itself to the ground. They quickly made a basic camp and then, leaving two MACOs behind to guard the camp, the others flew off to a remote network junction.

The network junction was a small concrete building near a highway junction deep within a desert in the Weechee Hegemony. The Edosians, like Humans, seemed to like to lay cables along existing right-of-ways. The shuttlepod dropped off Malcolm, T'Pol and Romero on the roof, and then took off again silently into the night, taking up a guard position far above them.

Their scanners showed them the interior of the building and the makeup of the alarm system. There were no interior cameras and the outside cameras looked out, not up. Romero quickly drilled through the concrete roof with a phase beam drill, inserted a fiberscope, deftly bypassed the alarm sensors on the roof hatch and they were in.

Racks of equipment filled the small building. It took a few minutes to identify good locations for their network taps. Once they had, they quickly installed the taps, exited, and restored the alarm.

The next couple of evenings were spent installing taps on the other continents. Back on _Enterprise_, as soon as the taps were installed, information started flowing both directions over subspace. Experts on Earth and Vulcan began the process of penetrating the Edosian networks remotely, aided by Hoshi and her small communications staff. Malcolm and the rest of the landing party settled into their camp.

October 27, 2156 1315 (Weechee Zone 3 Time) – _Enterprise_ Command Center, Edos Outer System

Archer, Hoshi and Veena were present in the Command Center. Commander Harcourt from Earth was on a viewscreen along with a network penetration expert, Lieutenant Smith. Malcolm and T'Pol shared the viewscreen from the shuttlepod.

Smith was giving an update on their progress from the Earth side. The network penetration had gone very well and they had found information that seemed to indicate that at least parts of the drones had been manufactured in the Weechee Hegemony. All of the hints pointed at Arsenal 47, a top-secret facility.

Smith continued, "Unfortunately, Arsenal 47 has the most effective type of network security – it isn't connected to any external networks at all."

"It's also one of the shielded facilities," Malcolm said. "We can't just land on the roof. The only way in or out is through one of the guarded gates."

"If you were to get in, do you know what you're looking for?" asked Archer.

"Yes, we retrieved floor plans from a contractor's system," said Smith.

Archer rubbed his hands together. "Well, we just happen to have an expert on shields onboard. Why don't we ask her how to break in?"

October 27, 2156 1330 (Weechee Zone 3 Time) – Trip's Office, _Enterprise_, Edos Outer System

Archer stepped in and closed the door. "Trip, I'd like to have Melek take a look at a shield installation on Edos. We need to figure out how to break in."

Trip looked up from his work. "Break in? Aren't you guys getting a little carried away with this covert ops stuff? All the shielded installations are the really secure ones, aren't they?"

"Yes, but I think it's our best option, Trip. It shouldn't be that difficult. The Edosians are strongly diurnal, so there are only a few watchmen on duty at night. The landing party has scanners to map the alarm systems and find the watchmen, so they should have no problems avoiding them. We were able to find floor plans of the buildings and we think we know where they keep the secure data."

"I just don't like it. Their communicators won't work through the shield and we can't even beam them out in an emergency."

Archer studied Trip's face. He looked really, truly concerned.

"This is about T'Pol, isn't it?"

"No. I don't know. Well, yes," stammered Trip.

"She's going to be fine. They all will be. And we need to do this."

Trip leaned back heavily in his chair. "You're right. But I still don't like it."

"Let's go get Melek."

October 29, 2156 0200 (Weechee Zone 3 Time) – Arsenal 47, Weechee Hegemony, Edos

The shuttlepod had made a trip back to _Enterprise_ to pick up Melek and now hovered a kilometer above the arsenal. The arsenal was a complex of buildings about four hundred meters across with a five meter wall around the area. The shield was a lambent blue bubble over everything, coming down to the ground outside the wall. Three arches were the gates where traffic was passed through the shield. Cameras were mounted outside the bubble on poles.

An array of equipment was scattered on the shuttlepod's deck with a rat's nest of cables hooking them up. Melek seemed to know exactly which was which, though, as every now and then she would reroute a cable or tap a connector without hesitation.

She was now intently studying the displays at the shuttlepod's science station. T'Pol, displaced from her usual seat, was looking over her shoulder.

"Give me a 200 millicochrane burst of delta rays, greenskin," Melek said.

T'Pol reached over to the weapons console and tapped a control.

"That's it!" exclaimed Melek. "Someone left themselves a back door! I don't think the Edosians built these shields themselves."

"Can you open it?" asked Malcolm.

"Is ice cold? We'll just need a few pieces of equipment. It'll take about five minutes because all of this Starfleet junk is underpowered. You'll need to go in on foot, too, I can't open a hole big enough for the shuttlepod."

"Blast. How are we going to get over the wall?" Malcolm mused.

"Edos' gravity is only fifty two percent of Earth's. I believe that I can handle the wall," said T'Pol.

A burst of delta rays from the shuttlepod disabled the cameras and it landed quietly fifty meters from the shield. T'Pol, Malcolm and Corporal Romero exited quickly, followed by Melek and two of the other MACOs, lugging the components of Melek's shield opener. They made quick progress to the shield, taking long loping strides in Edos' low gravity.

As Melek had predicted, within five minutes she had opened a meter high arch at the base of the shield. "Quick now, this won't hold for long," she whispered.

"Meet you back here in one hour," replied Malcolm. T'Pol, Malcolm and Romero slithered through the opening and headed for the wall.

T'Pol made it to the wall first and turned with her back to it and formed her hands into a stirrup. Romero put his foot into her hands, pushed off with the other leg and she hurled him into the air, high enough for him to get his hands onto the top of the wall. From the top of the wall, Romero trailed down a climbing line for the other two and quickly all three were inside the compound.

Consulting the map on a PADD, Malcolm led them while T'Pol monitored the scanner for the watchmen. They made their way to the administration building, occasionally stopping to blind a camera with delta rays. Once they made it to the building, Romero rapidly bypassed the locking mechanism and slid the door open.

They moved quietly through the darkened building, up ramps to the third floor, following Malcolm's map. A few minutes work by Romero and the door slid open. They entered and closed it behind them. Romero took up a station beside the door while T'Pol and Malcolm set to work on the computers in the room.

Tap tap tap. They froze in place and Reed and T'Pol extinguished their lights and flipped their night vision devices back into place. Tap tap tap. The sound seemed to be coming from inside the walls.

"What should we do?" whispered Romero. Malcolm drew his finger across his throat.

Tap tap tap. It seemed to be more insistent, if tapping could be insistent. They continued to freeze in place.

There was no more tapping. After a few more seconds they all relaxed. The tendrils that dropped from the ceiling and encircled them each were a complete surprise.


End file.
